Featured Video: Summer Child Car Safety

An average of 37 children die needlessly every year from vehicular heatstroke. This year, twenty-eight children have died already.

“No one thinks this can happen to them, and that is why technology along with education is critical to preventing these tragedies,” stated Janette Fennell, founder and president of KidsAndCars.org, the leading national nonprofit child safety organization working solely to prevent injuries and deaths of children in and around motor vehicles.

“This can and does happen to the most loving, responsible and attentive parents; no one is immune.”

In June, the Helping Overcome Trauma for Children Alone in Rear Seats Act (HOT CARS Act of 2017, H.R. 2801), was introduced in Congress, which would help prevent children from being needlessly killed and injured when unknowingly left alone in vehicles. The bi-partisan effort has received widespread support from more than twenty-five public health, consumer and safety organizations; experts in the neurosciences; and families who have lost their child or have children who were seriously injured due to child vehicular heatstroke.

“If there had been a simple chime to alert me of my son’s presence, none of this would have happened” said Miles Harrison, father of Chase, who died in a hot car in 2008.

“How can this be that in our great country, it is not mandatory for the simplest alarm to be required in all cars? Children are dying unnecessarily. Families are being destroyed unnecessarily. This has got to stop.”

“We encourage individuals in all communities to take action if you see a child alone in a vehicle. Call 911 immediately and if the child seems to be in imminent danger, break the window furthest away from the child to rescue them,” stressed Amber Andreasen, director of KidsAndCars.org. The organization offers a small tool called Res-Q-Me™, an all-in-one seatbelt cutter and window breaker that fits on your keychain. The spring-loaded device is tapped on the corner of a car window and the glass is shattered.